Claire: Step Three
Claire desires reconciliation with her childhood church and renewal of her ministerial calling, but she’s grown skeptical, confused, and depressed. How might Claire grow to accept the heartbreak she’s experienced and continue her faith journey instead of giving it all up?
Here are some ways Claire might declaw past hurts to resurrect her passion and voice in this new season.
Claire can allow herself to grieve.
“Why am I sobbing?” Claire apologizes for her tears as she tells old stories from her times as a youth in church. All the anger that usually keeps her grief at bay dissolves as she describes her childhood love for the church and her early enthusiasm as a minister in training. It is not just that she’s changed her mind. She has altered her orientation, letting go of the wide-eyed optimism and passionate clarity that once defined her personhood. Her current life would look unrecognizable to her former self, running barefoot around the church.
Too often, we assume life changes to be linear. One thing leads to another, with each piece building upon the other until a solid construction is built over time. However, Claire’s experience of her Jenga tower crumbling is what growing up looks like. Learning is a nonlinear process. We gain new knowledge and insight, all while yesterday’s insights come apart when facing today’s challenge. We need to speed up during one season and slow down in another. As Ecclesiastes tells us in its iconic third chapter, there is a season for everything under heaven. “A time to break down, and a time to build up.”
Claire might intellectually already know this to be accurate, but experiencing it is entirely different. Feeling like she is at a dead-end, Claire doesn’t even know how to speak about what happened and how deeply she’s hurting. She wonders if her religious identity is agnostic now (one who believes that there may not be a God; even if there is a God, it doesn’t seem to matter). I wonder how much agnosticism, in this case, is an intellectual way to hide from grief. Speaking up had been so central to her faith and identity. Giving up her voice, now distrustful of any religious language that might come out, feels almost like a form of self-harm.
Paula D’Arcy writes in Winter of the Heart: Finding Your Way through the Mystery of Grief, “Pain must move if it’s to be transformed. If it’s denied or hidden away inside, it affects future choices and the ability of our wound to heal. There must be an open space through which the river of sorrow can flow.”
Belief is more than an intellectual exercise, as Claire has learned in profound, life-altering ways. Yes, Claire went through seminary training where she could articulate faith in different ways. However, the emotional side of her religious transformation needs tending. To move forward, Claire can focus on finding a way for her sorrow to flow, as D’Arcy writes, rather than jumping to another religious label as a way to escape the pain.
Claire may not have felt empowered to name the profound sadness within this change because our culture does not often validate religious loss as grief. In the public square, Claire would feel much more comfortable naming the strides she’s made toward a more inclusive theology. She could talk publicly about all the ways she is happy to have moved on from evangelical faith, but speaking to the parts that she misses might feel like she’s morally complicit in the church’s wrong or disregarding the pain of LGBTQ+ Christians.
Bottling up grief over all that’s been lost (her confidence, worldview, voice, friendships, vocation, and belonging) creates a feeling of being stuck in bitterness and resentment.
Claire can unlock her spirituality so that the young girl in her can run barefoot and free.
What would happen if Claire calls to mind her teenage self, who ran barefoot around the church building, carefree from anxiety and loving life? Teenage Claire felt called by God to become a minister, even if it meant she would have to seek ordination outside her home church. She was bold and confident, ready to speak her faith aloud. She rode that wave of confidence until she grew weary from fighting the good fight against the larger institution of Christianity.
Claire distanced herself from churches and former Christian communities to return to a safe space. For her mental health, this distance has been essential to finding the freedom to sort through complex feelings and disruptive emotions.
If Claire can get to a place where she feels safe within her body, trusting her religious authority to revive her spiritual life, I wonder how Claire might ease up on the pressure she’s felt to get everything figured out. What if the Jenga blocks don’t have to form another tower? She can offer herself compassion instead of judgment whenever she feels nostalgic for how cohesive and solid her faith once felt. She can rebuild her spirituality, even with a broken heart, as she takes time to grieve and relearn how to open herself back up again with vulnerability and courage.
Nurturing new spiritual practices doesn’t have to dictate whether she stays away from church or returns to it. More critical than church affiliation or attendance, Claire can open herself up to love the teenage Claire, who has been locked away because her religious fervor was too valuable to be lost amidst all the deconstruction. When ready, Claire could wrap her arms around that former spirituality she once loved and cherished. She can remember her calling to ministry, weep for all that’s happened, and be open to seeing all that remains within her.
Claire is still the person God created her to be - full of spiritual enthusiasm and called to minister in love to God’s people, living out her mission as Jesus’ hands and feet. The grown-up Claire knows this calling will take a different form than her teenage self envisioned, but she no longer believes there’s only one way to be a Christian or serve in ministry.
Feeling safe and self-assured, Claire’s spiritual life can emerge from its cocoon and slowly blossom into whatever new shape it will take. Claire has learned that she is far more resilient than she knew. Her passion and voice emerge from her faith, which is now portable and can carry her through the changing seasons of life.
Claire can reintroduce herself and rebuild connections with forgiveness and tenderness.
Learning is not just about adjusting pieces of knowledge; learning happens in the transition moments. When we’ve left the known shore for lands far from home, we grow while we navigate the boat. Jesus does not teach growth in such a way that shames the previous versions of ourselves, the beliefs we leave behind. Too often, people show how enlightened they are by shaming people who still believe whatever belief they’ve left behind. In shame-filled spaces, “progressive” Christians create an environment where getting a belief “wrong” will trigger righteous judgment, thereby negating Jesus’ most profound teaching tools of compassion and forgiveness.
As Claire has experienced, faith is not the intellectual pursuit of correct answers. Faith is full-bodied, integrating our minds, hearts, souls, bodies, and communities. Therefore, forgiveness is not erasing or excusing our imperfections. Jesus’ forgiveness is about unleashing us from the expectations we place upon ourselves to have everything figured out and always do the right thing. Forgiveness is the grease in the wheels that allows us to move forward on the learning journey.
We must be gentle with ourselves in transition periods, especially when our whole belief system is under construction. Claire can start by sharing tenderness with herself and forgiving her teenage self for not being able to predict what would come in college. She can identify the good things that came from her passionate work in college, even if it didn’t bear the fruit she assumed it could.
She can re-introduce her adult self to the past versions of herself, speaking courageous and kind words like this: “I have grown so much. My life doesn’t look like it once did, but I’ve gained wisdom and deep friendships even though I’ve had to give up some dreams. I’ve learned that I’m far stronger than I ever knew and that deep sadness can signify that I’ve loved with my whole heart. I don’t know what comes next, but God is with me, which means that even heartbreak can be holy.”
After significant change, it can feel like you have to re-introduce yourself to people who knew you best when you were in a different life stage. One of Claire’s challenges this season is figuring out how to interact with people from her past who only knew her when she was a passionate advocate for evangelical Christianity. It’s almost as if she feels obligated to “come out” to these friends for no longer believing what she once did. She worries about her friends’ reactions to her uncertainty and time away from church. Some friends will appreciate her vulnerability, and their relationships will grow deeper. Other friendships may fade, as those friends are uncomfortable seeing a peer’s Jenga tower fall. Some of those friends might even try to convince Claire to rebuild the tower out of their evangelical zeal. Claire can remember how that fervor once lived in her, and she can respond with tenderness and boundaries.
When the tears come, Claire need not feel confused, for she knows she is grieving. She is learning to let go and to trust that the learning journey is the path to which God has called her. She hopes the adventure will take her somewhere she couldn’t ever have imagined. What amazing things might she do once she has free hands and feels ready to open herself up to the next chapter?
Connecting points to put each story in the context of our current day (resources), scripture (lectionary), wise thinkers (worth reading), and your personal story (reflection questions).